Knowledge, Attitude and Practice (KAP) of rural population towards diabetic complications in a developing country: An observational study

Introduction Diabetes Mellitus is a major global non-communicable epidemic disease. Knowledge about diabetes, its risk factors and complications is poor. Methods and materials: This was a hospital based study in which adult diabetics with age of 18yrs or more, who attended the hospital on OPD basis for consultation of diabetes. A total of 275 patients from two peripheral hospitals of Kashmir. Results and observation: Regarding the complications dizziness was mentioned by majority as a sign of hypoglycemia (42.1%) followed by palpitations, sweating, rigors and coma in 20.4%, 17.4%, 16.1% and 10% respectively. The most frequent known chronic complication of diabetes mentioned was cardiovascular (37%), sepsis (35%), nephropathy (32.0%), retinopathy (28.1%) and skin infection/ xerosis in 17% of patients. Conclusion: Knowledge about diabetic complications was low in our study. Most of rural population have poor access to diabetic information.